How Alberta’s Bill 1 Constrains Workers’ Rights to Protest

This post originally appeared on the Canadian Law of Work Forum.

On February 25, Alberta’s government introduced Bill 1 (the Critical Infrastructure Protection Act) in the Legislature. If passed, Bill 1 will allow police to arrest without warrant anyone who is present at any location defined as essential infrastructure or who interferes with the operation of the infrastructure “without lawful right, justification or excuse”.

The legislation is putatively designed to reduce the likelihood of economic disruption caused by civil disobedience, such as the recent railway blockades in support of the Wet-suwet’en First Nations. This Act will, however, significantly constrain the ability of workers to exert pressure on employers in Alberta.

Bill 1: An Overview
Bill 1 prohibits entering, damaging, destroying or interfering with the operation of essential infrastructure “without lawful right, justification, or excuse.” It also prohibits aiding, counselling, or directing someone else to do so.

In addition to arrest without warrant, those found in violation of the act face a minimum fine of $1000 for a first offense, with a maximum fine of $10,000. Second and subsequent offences see the maximum fine rise to $25,000. Each offence can also result in a jail term of not more than 6 months. Each day that an offense continues is considered a separate offence under the Act.

An essential infrastructure includes pipelines, utilities, mines and oil production sites, highways, railways, powerplants, agricultural operations, and dams. Bill 1 also allows cabinet to extend the list of essential infrastructure through regulation.

Of particular note is that a highway, as defined in Section 1(1)(p) the Traffic Safety Act is a verybroad term. It includes any publicly- or privately-owned thoroughfare, street, road, trail, avenue, parkway, driveway, lane, alley, square, bridge, or causeway, including adjacent sidewalks and boulevards.

Analysis

Alberta’s United Conservative government asserts that Bill 1 is necessary to protect the province’s economy from disruption. Numerous commentators have noted that the behaviours prohibited by Bill 1 are already illegal under other statutes. In this way, Bill 1 is unnecessary duplication and may be simply a political nod to government supporters, including employers.

An alternative analysis is that Bill 1 is designed to heighten the cost associated with effective pressure tactics that workers might exert. Precluding individuals from being present on sidewalks or boulevards “without lawful right, justification or excuse” would, for example, dramatically raise the risk and cost associated with information and solidarity pickets.

For example, during the recent lock-out of Co-op refinery workers in Regina, Unifor locals and allies have shut down fuel distribution depots and conducted information pickets of gas stations in order to exert economic and reputation pressure on the refinery. These actions occurred on sidewalks, boulevards, and driveways and could constitute entering essential infrastructure without lawful reason. Bill 1 would allow the police to immediately arrest such protestors and require a minimum $1000 fine for a first offence. The spectre of these consequences will undermine the viability of such actions in the future, thereby benefitting employers.

Of particular concern to Alberta labour activists is the impact of Bill 1 on public-sector labour relations. Virtually every public-sector collective agreement in Alberta is up for negotiation this year. The United Conservative government has signalled its intention to reduce public-sector compensation. To help achieve wage rollbacks, the government delayed arbitrations last summer. It then gave itself the power to issue binding and secret bargaining mandates to public-sector employers. In light of this, unions expect the government is also considering back-to-work legislation, a strategy recommended by Alberta’s recent Blue-Ribbon panel on provincial finances.

Consequently, Alberta’s public-sector unions are taking unprecedented steps to prepare their members for job action. This member mobilization—including information picketing outside public facilities—is publicly framed as preparing for legal strikes. At mobilization events, however, wildcat strikes are being explicitly discussed. Many activists suggest that wildcat strikes may be much more effective at causing the government to shift its position at the bargaining table. Although it has a conservative reputation, Alberta has a recent history of wildcat strikes in health care (2000, 2012), construction (2007), and the prison system (2013).

For the government, Bill 1 would be a useful supplement to existing laws prohibiting job action other than legal strikes. Public-sector institutions could be easily named as essential infrastructure through regulation and picketing prohibited. The threat of immediate arrest would likely reduce the willingness of workers to picket during a wildcat. This, in turn, degrades workers’ ability to solicit public support and/or disrupt operations in order to pressure the government.

While there are no publicly available analyses of the constitutionality of Bill 1, it appears to sit uncomfortably with our Charter freedoms of expression and of peaceful assembly. Both of these rights permit peaceful protests in public spaces, such as sidewalks or lands associated with public buildings. While the use of Bill 1 to suppress picketing and other worker actions would undoubtedly be challenged, such challenges are slow. In the meantime, the law continues to operate.

If this analysis of Bill 1’s effect on labour relations is correct, Bill 1 represents another step in Alberta’s rolling back of workers' rights. Alberta did away with card-check certification, rendered the public-sector replacement worker ban ineffective, and opened up holes in over-time pay provisions last summer. It then interfered with contractually required arbitrations and allowed itself the power to issue secret and binding bargaining mandates. Now it appears poised to restrict workers’ freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.

-- Bob Barnetson

Will Alberta's unions resist?

Two weeks ago, a friend and I were kicking around labour’s response to the Kenney government’s series of attacks on workers’ rights. In no particular order, they include:

• Forcing votes on union drives no matter the level of worker support.
• Interfering in signed collective agreements and then demanding rollbacks of 2-5%.
• Giving itself the power to enact secret and binding bargaining mandates on public-sector employers, thereby making future bargaining almost meaningless.
• Transferring management of some public-sector pensions to a lower-performing management company, perhaps to shore up the oil-and-gas industry.
• Looking ahead, likely public-sector layoffs.

The question we wrestled with was whether these actions were business as usual for conservative governments (resulting in perfunctory union resistance) or if (perhaps together) they represented an escalation that would trigger a significant response from labour.

The basic deal underlying modern labour relations is that (1) employers agree to bargaining in good faith with unions and (2) unions agree to limit strikes to small, predictable windows. This all gets codified in labour law that the state administers.

The state isn’t, of course neutral, being both an employer itself and beholden to capital. And there are many examples of governments having bigger or smaller goes at organized labour (Klein, Harris, Redford, but cf Harper and Ford). For the most part, though, conflict tends to be episodic, contained and relatively muted (quiet cooperation is actually the norm). This reflects that governments are interested in social stability. (More recently, Charter-based restrictions on what they can get away with in the medium term).

Unions generally cooperate with governments because there are organizational benefits to doing so and penalties to resisting. In practice, there is a degree of mutual accommodation, worker demands tend to be monetized, and the union manages any worker discontent. (These dynamics are described by labour scholars as incorporation, economism, and bureaucratization.)

When governments pick fights with unions, this can embolden the more radical voices with unions. Union often act to manage demands for overt conflict by emphasizing communication-based responses and seeking to reign in direct job action.

Union responses to Kenney’s recent series of attacks have been a bit different. There certainly has been an air war, but unions are also investing resources in developing the capacity of their members to take direct action against their employers (whether the government or a government-appointed agency, board or commission).

It is an open question whether Alberta unions have any real appetite for worker-directed job action (e.g., sick outs, over-time strikes, wildcat strikes). My friend correctly noted:

• Alberta’s labour movement has a history of folding up when labour conflicts with the government start to intensify (as they did in 1995),
• certain unions have folded up their tents early in exchange for favourable deals (e.g., Alberta Teachers Association), which often makes it difficult for other unions to buck the pattern these unions set, and
• there will almost certainly be significant financial and legal costs if workers engage in an illegal strike. (And, given Kenney’s history as a federal politician, I suspect that any job action will be illegal or will become illegal almost as soon as it happens.)

I countered that unions are spending resources to develop the member infrastructure necessary for direct action. This suggests that unions (1) see direct action as a viable counter-weight (although perhaps more as a threat, than a weapon), and, (2) by mobilizing members, must be prepared to accept whatever risk of unplanned job action that accrues from having mobilize members. (I'd had a lot of coffee at this point and was maybe a bit amped up!)

Obviously, labour is not monolithic. Different unions (and even different locals within one union) can approach matters differently. For example, Alberta’s faculty associations have very different takes on how to proceed in the face of funding cuts and expected rollback demands. These sorts of tensions enable the government to pick off the weakest unions and reduce the size of the strike threat.

So far, the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, the Health Sciences Association of Alberta, and the Canadian Union of Public Employees seem to be talking the toughest. I’ve no sense of where the United Nurses of Alberta are on job action. They have hired organizers and they are fighting with the government in court. But I wonder about the organization’s willingness to strike illegally. The willingness of the teachers to resist (they have taken 6 zeros in 7 years) is also an open question.

The answer may come down to how hard Kenney goes at unions. The harder the government attacks, the fewer incentives there are for unions to retrain calls for direct action. And the harder it is for the conservative elements within unions to resist demands for direct action.

A different way to look at this question is how far is the Kenney government prepared to go to achieve whatever its goals might be? The harder the government pushes, the greater the risk that it will end up triggering profound social disruption (e.g., workers walk out). What this would achieve is a bit of  mystery. Perhaps it could be used as a pretext for radical revision of the basic deal that underlies labour relations (although it's not clear who that benefits). Perhaps it is simply ideological or a distraction from some other project.

-- Bob Barnetson

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CLC is struck; AUPE prepares to strike

There have been two interesting developed in Alberta’s labour scene this past week.

Last Tuesday, staff employed by the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) began a strike against the CLC. The strike follows two years of bargaining. According to the union, the CLC is trying to roll back anti-harassment language, conduct a job evaluation (which is code for grinding wages by reclassifying work downward,) and a substandard wage settlement.

The workers are presently 15% behind the average wage in their field but the union is only seeking small and retroactive cost of living adjustments (1.6%, 2.3% and 3.45%). The workers also want their pension plan cap removed. This reflects that the pension plan has suffered substantial erosion since 2011 (i.e., the CLC is saving money by grinding its workers’ pensions).

The employer is offering a one-time payment of $1000 plus increases of 1.75% and 3.45% in the last two years of the agreement and one extra day off. This low-ball offer comes (of course…) after a significant bump to the salaries of the CLC President, VPs, and Secretary-Treasurer in 2017 followed by indexing to the consumer price index.

It is difficult to fathom why the CLC would want to precipitate a strike, but unions are notoriously shitty employers of their own staff. I’m not sure how credible the CLC will be going forward advocating for workers when it treats its own staff so poorly.

There is only one CLC worker employed in Alberta but she has put up an impressive picket line, bolstered by other labour activists and union officials. There have been two interesting absences from this picket line.

First, none of the elected staff at the Alberta Federation of Labour have attended the picket-line (which has been happening 12 blocks from the AFL offices). Federation of Labour officials in virtually every other province have joined CLC staff on their picket lines.

Second, no New Democrat MLAs have appeared, despite the picket line occurring next door to Edmonton centre MLA David Shepherd’s constituency office. While ND MLAs are happy to participate in photo-ops at labour events (and labour leaders have no option but to make nice), this masks a growing distance between the party and labour activists. Some of the back story can be found here.

The second story was the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE) held its 43rd convention. This included a rally at the Legislature.

The expected serious public-sector cuts and legislative attacks on workers right are driving unions to cooperate in ways that they haven’t in recent memory. The presidents of the United Nnurses of Alberta, the Health Sciences Association of Alberta, and the Canadian Union of Public Employees were all present at the convention and rally. These unions have had strained relations but a common enemy is a wonder salve for old wounds.

The expected cuts is also driving unions to prepare for job action (at least some of which will likely be illegal). Union leaders used war metaphors, talked about direct action against employers, and explicitly discussed illegal strikes if the government picks a fight. The budget later this week will give us a good sense of how quickly things are going to heat up.

-- Bob Barnetson

Is a general strike in the offing for Alberta?

I attended an information picket hosted by the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE) last Tuesday. This picket was one of many AUPE is hosting to voice its members’ opposition to Bill 9, which the government passed in order to break collective agreements and stall wage arbitrations for public-sector workers.

AUPE (and other unions) have been organizing pickets all summer. These pickets are designed to channel and publicize public-sector workers’ anger. They also normalize picketing and are useful in identifying and training a new cadre of union activists going into what will likely be a difficult period for unions (legislated wage rollbacks are expected this fall).

The tone on this picket line was notably chippier than the one I attended in July. There were lots of cars honking in support. The only negative feedback I saw was from one (of course) pickup driver. I didn’t catch what he shouted but the shouted response from several female healthcare workers was “I hope you never need anyone to wipe your ass in hospital!”

There were the usual rah-rah speeches. A notable departure from the usual talking points was made by AUPE President Guy Smith who said (and this is a slight paraphrase) these pickets are practice for a general strike because, if the government won't respect our rights and the courts won’t force them to, a general strike is our only option. As an aside, general strikes were the subject of a very interesting analysis by Organizing Work a few weeks back.

Union leaders have studiously avoided talking about an illegal strike in public until now. The Court of Appeal overturning the injunction against Bill 9 and the MacKinnon panel musing about legislated bargaining mandates, back-to-work legislation and the notwithstanding clause may have contributed to this change in tone. Essentially, if the government is set on denying workers any meaningful legal recourse when the government violates the Charter and breaks collective agreements, the only option (as Smith suggested) is to take to the streets.

An interesting question is whether this speech was a calculated warning shot designed to sober up the government, a emotionally driven response to a tough couple of weeks for the labour movement, or an honest communication to workers about where things are heading? I’m inclined to think there is a bit of all three explanations at work.

If you’ve ever crossed swords with him, you’ll know that Smith is passionate and can engage in some… errr… rhetorical excess when he gets pissed off. That’s not to say he isn’t savvy and calculating (he definitely is both those things). Indeed, he may be leveraging the apparent ineffectiveness of legal options as a way to pressure other labour leaders into taking a more aggressive stance than they might otherwise be inclined to.

His comments may also have beeb an effort to warn the government of the consequences of their intended course of action. Jason Kenney’s spat with Amnesty International (of all groups) this week suggests that this kind of warning is likely just going to amp up a government that is already demonstrably intemperate and thin-skinned. I presume Smith knows that. Perhaps Smith is making lemon-aide: there’s gonna be a fight, so its best to goad Kenney into (further) overplaying his hand because a boss who’s being a complete asshole is a great asset to unions.

And telling workers there’s going to be a fight (especially a sympathetic crowd like people who picket after work) is a good way to start inoculating workers against the fear and smear campaign the government will likely run in conjunction with any legislation. It’s also the honest and right thing to do.

-- Bob Barnetson

Edmonton Public Library flirts with cutting teens' wages

Alberta’s minimum wage for youth under 18 will be reduced tomorrow as part of a broad series of labour-law rollbacks enacted by the new United Conservative government. The short of it is that workers under 18 and enrolled in school will have a minimum wage of $13 per hour, instead of the $15 per hour earned by everyone else.

Some employers have publicly pledged to continuing paying youth the same wage as adults. Others are quietly rolling back wages. The first public case of a rollback was (oddly) the Edmonton Public Library.

Background

The Edmonton Public Library (EPL) has a pretty good reputation as a library system and its staff provides wonderful services, often to vulnerable populations. The EPL also contributes to and is committed to important democratic principles such as intellectual freedom: “Intellectual Freedom protects your right to read, listen, write and speak your beliefs and opinions – and everyone has the right to have an opinion or hear an opinion on any topic. ”

EPL’s collective agreement with CSU 52 set the wages of its youth pages at the minimum wage plus an additional premium (between 15% and 25%). On June 10, the EPL emailed its youth ages to tell them that it would be reducing their wages between $2.30 and $2.50 an hour because the provincial government has reduced the youth minimum wage.

Staff were told verbally not to “gossip” about this wage rollback and to direct questions or concerns directly to management. This suggests the EPL’s commitment to intellectual freedom extends only to its customers, not its employees. Despite efforts to contain news of this rollback to within the library, word got around.

Timeline and Messaging

On June 12, when queried about the rollback, the library’s talking points were essentially these:

As some background, EPL employs youth workers under 18 as Student Pages in our libraries. These positions are unionized and their wages are outlined through a letter of understanding with Civic Service Union 52. 

The Government of Alberta has instituted a new youth minimum wage of $13 per hour for students under the age of 18. This will come into effect Wednesday, June 26 and our Student Pages will be affected by it. This is because rates of pay for a Student Page are tied to the minimum wage as established by the Government of Alberta.

In short, the library sought to place responsibility for the change on the government and on the EPL’s collective agreement with CSU 52. In these talking points, the EPL appears to lack agency or choice.

In the early hours of June 13, local blogger David Climenhaga published a sharp critique of the EPL, noting that the EPL could indeed negotiate a solution that precluded a wage cut. By 8 am, the library’s talking points had shifted:

I do wish to let you know though, that EPL is currently open for bargaining with Civic Service Union 52 and through negotiations will be discussing further.

This suggests that the EPL had some choice but things are still constrained by its bargaining relationship with CSU 52 (with which it was bargaining). At this point, criticism of the EPL began to pick up on twitter, with long-time library supporters expressing shock and disappointment. Traditional media also began to ask questions. After lunch, CSU 52 then made a chippy post (since removed) about its dismay with the EPL’s behaviour.

By the afternoon, the library had reversed course. A statement on the EPL website indicated, in part:

The Edmonton Public Library (EPL) would like to acknowledge feedback we’ve received regarding our Student Page positions and the impact of recently announced changes to student minimum wage rates in Alberta. As part of our Collective Agreement with Civic Service Union 52 (CSU 52), Student Page wages are based on a premium applied to the provincial minimum wage set by the Government of Alberta. 

EPL is proud to have ongoing roles specifically for high school students under the age of 18. We value our Student Pages as evidenced by our commitment to paying a premium over the minimum wage. 

EPL will begin bargaining with CSU 52 shortly to negotiate a new Collective Agreement. Generally, changes to language contained in the Collective Agreement are done through the bargaining process which involves EPL working collaboratively with CSU 52 to make any amendments. 

Fortunately, EPL has not implemented this proposed change, and after further discussion, EPL and CSU 52 have come to an agreement to maintain current Student Page wages rates until negotiation of the new Collective Agreement is complete. As a result, there will be no changes to Student Page wages at this time ($17.25 - $18.75 per hour). 

Thank you for voicing your opinions and asking us to find a solution.

In this set of messages, the EPL is still the victim of circumstance but is now also a responsive employer that values the workers whose wages it was going to cut.

CSU then replaced its critical post with one outlining how it cooperated with the library to resolve the issue. The EPL then went on a twitter offensive, individually pushing its resolution messaging out to everyone who made a critical comment. This generated mostly praise and relief, with a few tweets querying what the library had been thinking in the first place.

Analysis

Although this case relies solely on public documents, there are some conclusions we can draw. These include:

1. Intentional decision: The partial paper trail that I have seen suggests this decision was both intentional and well enough thought through that there was plan to mitigate reputational harm. In light of this, it is reasonable to conclude that the EPL decided the benefits of reducing teens’ wages (e.g., cost savings, leverage over CSU 52 at the bargaining table) outweighed the costs of acting to maintain wages.

2. Pressure worked: Concerted public pushback caused the EPL to reverse its decision about reducing youth wages. The EPL may have been particularly sensitive to reputational harm because reputation is an important asset, particularly as the EPL tries to raise money to complete the renovation of the Milner library. Whether other employers are equally vulnerable to reputational harm is an open question.

3. Incremental response: The EPL’s response changed over the course of two days from defending the change to reversing it. I would suggest the mounting criticism among library patrons and supporters caused this (eventual) reversal. Absent continued criticism, I suspect the library would not have reversed its decision but instead would have tried to communicate the problem away.

4. Inconsistent messaging: The EPL’s messaging started out claiming the EPL had little agency (caught between the union and the government). By the end, the EPL had worked out a fix. This fix was available from the get go. What was missing was the political will to achieve it.

5. All smiles: Both the EPL and CSU 52 are now touting their agreement as a good news story and CSU has revised it public statement. This “nice-nice” behaviour elides the conflict they had during the dust up.

6. Organized labour's absence: Alberta’s unions were notable absent in this push back. To be fair, they were focused on opposing Bill 9, which attacks wage settlements. But unions are large organizations that can attend to multiple problems. This was a missed opportunity for labour to support a vulnerable and sympathetic group negatively affected by government policies. This “poster-child” dynamic is important. For example, the 1995 laundry workers strike in Calgary was an important turning point in blunting Ralph Klein’s enthusiasm for further wage rollback.

-- Bob Barnetson

Labour & Pop Culture: Damnation Ep 1-5

Rainy summer days are a nice time for TV. I have been working my way through the Netflix series Damnation.

The series is set in the rural America in the 1930s (but filmed by Calgary). It follows local preacher (of sorts) Seth who rallies local farmers facing price fixing by local business folks who are in league with the nasty banker.

The series opens with a producers strike, based on the Farmers’ Holiday Association strike of the 1930s. There was also a producers strike in Alberta in the late 1940s. This idea circulated in Alberta again during the debate about Bill 6.

The bad guys then bring in a strike breaker (Creeley) who kills strikers. While this seems a touch dramatic, it is based upon the strike breaking activity of private detective agencies like the Pinkertons (in the story, Creeley is a Pinkerton).

Episode 1 ends when Seth responds by nailing the dead man up to the bank door with the sign “which side are you on?” around his neck. (Which Side Are You On is a 1931 miners’ strike song from Harlan County—which is also (sort of) covered in the series).

Episode 2 features white supremacists and explores how the newspaper aligns itself with the interests of the local business people. Episodes 3-5 explores escalating conflict over farm foreclosures and an effort to split the farmers up to undermine their strike. A lot of people die in this series.



There are three strong female characters in story (a sociopathic strikebreaker, the preacher's radical wife, and a very cagey prostitute), which is nice to see given the tendency of unions of be viewed as “male” organizations and the limited roles of women in the 1930s. I’m hopeful we’ll see more of them in the second half of the series.

I’m pretty keen to finish this series and see how it plays out. There is some larger conspiracy by industrialists at work in the series that I’m keen to see revealed.

-- Bob Barnetson

Labour & Pop Culture: Worker-generated memes

This week’s installment of Labour & Pop Culture looks at worker-generated contributions to pop culture—specifically memes. Workers have always generated cultural artifacts (paintings, handbills, poetry, songs, graffiti) about their work.

Social media has given these forms of cultural expression wider circulation. Consider this example, from the Ontario Federation of Labour in response to Tim Horton’s miserly reduction in paid breaks to offset increases in the minimum wage.

The backlash caused (in part) by online campaigns like this one included protests against the franchise across the nation.

The more interest memes are those generated by individual workers. While they are less polished, they often do a good job of conveying a complex idea. For example, consider this criticism of employer efforts to restructure work:

This pretty clearly illustrates that, whatever their mission statements may say about valuing workers, employers' true interests lie in making profits.

More complex dynamics can also be teased out. For example, one way to view health and safety regulations is that they determine the acceptable level at which employers can trade workers’ health (and lives) for profit. When you say it like that, most people roll their eyes and think “communist”. But you can make the same point like this:

This meme clearly conveys the double standard in employment. The state allows employers to main and kill workers (up to point) by setting levels of exposure to hazardous substances. But if workers did the same the same thing to employers, the workers would go to jail. This kind of presentation often resonates with workers and causes them to re-evaluate their views.

Worker generated memes also have the potential to change the minds of employers. For example, employers often complain about and/or undermine (e.g., by stalling) the operation of the grievance process. Filing an unfair labour practice against the employer is one option. Another is to start posting memes such as this in the workplace.

This highlights to employers that there certainly are alternatives to complying with the grievance process. But they aren't necessarily the most desirable options for employer, all told. Overall, I'm very encouraged by the potential utility of memes in labour education.

-- Bob Barnetson

Labour & Pop: Electric Avenue

This week’s installment in Labour & Pop Culture features “Electric Avenue” by Eddy Grant. The song refers to rioting in April of 1981 in the Brixton area of London. The local community (predominantly of African or Caribbean descent) faced significant economic troubles and racism. Rioting broke out in April and left hundreds (mostly cops) injured as well as significant property damage.

The song talks about the terrible conditions and frustrations faced by the residents of Brixton:

Workin' so hard like a soldier
Can't afford a thing on TV
Deep in my heart I'm a warrior
Can't get food for them kid, good God

The chorus promises to “Rock down to Electric Avenue/And then we’ll take it higher”. Electric Avenue was the first place with electric street lights in Brixton (although not a site of significant rioting). Taking it higher refers to the need for the poor to protest in the neighbourhoods of the rich, rather than trashing their own communities.

I first heard this song in 1984. We used to make a summer trek from northeastern BC to the homeland (Saskatchewan) each year. Often my mother would buy a new cassette tape for the van for the trip. She ran into Zellers to get a copy of Eddie Rabbit’s new tape (he was a folk singer) but got confused and bought Electric Avenue. Several hundred kilometers later, hilarity ensued.



Boy
Boy

Down in the street there is violence
And a lots of work to be done
No place to hang out our washing
And I can't blame all on the sun, oh no

We gonna rock down to Electric Avenue
And then we'll take it higher
Oh we gonna rock down to Electric Avenue
And then we'll take it higher

Workin' so hard like a soldier
Can't afford a thing on TV
Deep in my heart I'm a warrior
Can't get food for them kid, good God

We gonna rock down to Electric Avenue
And then we'll take it higher
Oh we gonna rock down to Electric Avenue
And then we'll take it higher

Oh no
Oh no
Oh no
Oh no

Who is to blame in one country
Never can get to the one
Dealin' in multiplication
And they still can't feed everyone, oh no

We gonna rock down to Electric Avenue
And then we'll take it higher
Oh we gonna rock down to Electric Avenue
And then we'll take it higher

Out in the street
Out in the street
Out in the daytime
Out in the night

We gonna rock down to Electric Avenue
And then we'll take it higher
Oh we gonna rock down to Electric Avenue
And then we'll take it higher

Out in the street
Out in the street
Out in the playground
In the dark side of town

We gonna rock down to Electric Avenue
And then we'll take it higher
Oh we gonna rock down to Electric Avenue
And then we'll take it higher

We gonna rock down to Electric Avenue
And then we'll take it higher, Electric Avenue
We gonna rock down to Electric Avenue
And then we'll take it higher, Electric Avenue

-- Bob Barnetson

Labour & Pop Culture: Feel Like a Number

This week’s installment of Labour & Pop Culture is “Feel Like a Number” by Bob Seger. Yes, back to the classic rock well (I’m open to suggestions for songs from different genres!).

This is a pretty straight forward song about alienation and the depersonalizing effects of industrial society. The singer feels like a number and flags various sources of his alienation (schools, government, employers, phone companies). The singer’s solution is interesting:

Gonna cruise out of this city
Head down to the sea
Gonna shout out at the ocean
Hey it's me

That really doesn’t resolve the issue: in the typology of exit, voice, neglect and patience, the singer is mostly exercising patience (combined with temporary neglect). Basically, he’s accepting his place in society (however grudgingly) and expressing his dissatisfaction via harmless behaviour (a short vacation).

We should probably give Seger props for writing a song that likely taps into his fans’ work-a-day experience, including their constrained set of options to respond to a dehumanizing society. Yet it is interesting to contrast the remedy outlined in song with that in, say, “Take this Job and Shove It”. Seger knuckles under while Johnny Paycheque tells the boss where to step off.

Finding a video for this song was a chore. It was originally released on the late 1970s (so no video) and Seger’s live performances have terrible audio (plus he’s not exactly vocalist of the year). So I give you (a rather shouty) Cher…



I take my card and I stand in line
To make a buck I work overtime
Dear Sir letters keep coming in the mail
I work my back till it's racked with pain
The boss can't even recall my name

I show up late and I'm docked
It never fails
I feel like just another
Spoke in a great big wheel
Like a tiny blade of grass
In a great big field

To workers I'm just another drone
To Ma Bell I'm just another phone
I'm just another statistic on a sheet
To teachers I'm just another child
To IRS I'm just another file

I'm just another consensus on the street
Gonna cruise out of this city
Head down to the sea
Gonna shout out at the ocean
Hey it's me

And I feel like a number
Feel like a number
Feel like a stranger
A stranger in this land
I feel like a number

I'm not a number
I'm not a number
Dammit I'm a man
I said I'm a man

-- Bob Barnetson

Direct-action solidarity in Brighton

Mainstream Canadian trade unionism continues to (mostly) focus on workers having full-time, permanent work with a single employer (sometimes called the standard employment relationship). This reflects (in part) that the laws structuring trade unionism in Canada were built for workers in (broadly speaking) manufacturing jobs in the mid-20th century.

Obviously I’m generalizing some—many unions make an admirable effort to represent workers in the now dominant service-sector (e.g., UFCW). But the nature of this work—low pay, high-turn over—and the workforce—often teens and foreign migrant workers—make representation challenging. The low unionization rate also means that non-unionized employers are often able to “out compete” unionized employers via various forms of wage theft.

An alternative to traditional trade unionism in these sectors is direct action solidarity. This comes in lots of flavours but the gist is that workers join together to picket, occupy or otherwise punish employers who screw their workers.



We have seen some of this in Edmonton with the Wobblies. Sometimes these campaigns are successful (i.e., the workers get their demands met). Sometimes they are unsuccessful (i.e., the employer ignores the pressure). And sometimes the results are mixed (e.g., a crappy employer is driven out of business and thus can’t harm other workers). A friend tipped me to this British example of a direct action campaign in Brighton.

One of the outcomes of current Canadian labour laws is that they tend to divert anger into manageable processes (e.g., interminable grievance arbitration). This tends to benefit employers (who don’t have to worry about workers putting down their tools. Yet, for some workers (and for all workers in some instances), acting outside of the confines of labour law and some workers may be more beneficial.

-- Bob Barnetson

April 28: Day of Mourning

The International Day of Mourning for workers injured and killed on the job is Tuesday, April 28th. In Edmonton, there will be a ceremony and reception at Grant Notley Park from 4-6 pm. It looks like there were about 120 fatalities accepted by the WCB in 2014, down slightly from 2013.

Among the dead (but not counted in the statistics above) are farm workers. Farm workers are left  out because Alberta excludes farm workers from most workplace rights (e.g., occupational health and safety, workers’ compensation) thus their deaths are not recorded in WCB stats. 

The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner has released preliminary stats for 2015, noting the OCHE investigated 25 farming fatalities. It is unclear how comprehensive this list is. The absence of deaths due to occupational disease suggest not every death is captured in this list. And, of course, deaths represent only a small fraction of all injuries (if you toss in minor injuries and occupational disease, deaths represent perhaps a few as one in 3000 injuries).

Of these 25 deaths, 15 were owner operators and 5 were employees. Two were under 18. These deaths are not broken out by work-related or non-work-related. Machinery, animals, falls, struck/crush injuries and MVA lead the way in terms of cause.

On a related note, last weekend the Alberta Federation of Labour held its annual convention in Calgary. Among the motions were ones directing the AFL to file a complaint about the statutory exclusion of farm workers with the International Labour Organization as well as under the North American Free Trade Agreement. More interest was a motion to set up a compensation fund for the families of farm workers killed on the job.

Edit: I'm now told none of the farm worker motions were voted on at the AFL convention due to lack of time.

-- Bob Barnetson

Friday Tunes: We Are The Many

This week’s installment of labour these in popular culture is Makana’s We are the Many, a song that became popular during the occupy movement. While it is tempting to dismiss the occupy movement, the discussion of the 1% and the 99% recurs with surprising frequency and injects an unexpected (and perhaps sometimes unconscious) class critique into everyday discourse.

The song talks about exploitation and wages (“to steal from us the value of our wage”) and the growing hopeless of the waged class (“Our nation was built upon the right/Of every person to improve their plight”). The more important theme, though, is how growing corporate influence over the state sits uneasily with (or in opposition to) the basic premise of political democracy and, over time, undermine the legitimacy of the state.

You enforce your monopolies with guns
While sacrificing our daughters and sons
But certain things belong to everyone
Your thievery has left the people none

The notion that contemporary economic and political systems lack legitimacy is a potentially explosive one because society is basically a shared social construction. We all agree to be bound by certain rules and conventions and norms (e.g., currency has value, possessions can be owned, we ought not to kill the rich). Until, one day, we don't agree to that any more. Then all bets are off and numbers (e.g., 99 v 1) suddenly count.

One of the more interesting experiences of working with workers is the moment they realize that, while employers have immense power, employers are also out numbered and vulnerable to (and are indeed scared by) collective action. This is the point that the song ends on: “We are the many/You are the few.”



Ye come here, gather 'round the stage
The time has come for us to voice our rage
Against the ones who've trapped us in a cage
To steal from us the value of our wage

From underneath the vestiture of law
The lobbyists at Washington do gnaw
At liberty, the bureaucrats guffaw
And until they are purged, we won't withdraw

[chorus]
We'll occupy the streets
We'll occupy the courts
We'll occupy the offices of you
Till you do
The bidding of the many, not the few

Our nation was built upon the right
Of every person to improve their plight
But laws of this Republic they rewrite
And now a few own everything in sight

They own it free of liability
They own, but they are not like you and me
Their influence dictates legality
And until they are stopped we are not free

[chorus]

You enforce your monopolies with guns
While sacrificing our daughters and sons
But certain things belong to everyone
Your thievery has left the people none

So take heed of our notice to redress
We have little to lose, we must confess
Your empty words do leave us unimpressed
A growing number join us in protest

[chorus]

You can't divide us into sides
And from our gaze, you cannot hide
Denial serves to amplify
And our allegiance you can't buy

Our government is not for sale
The banks do not deserve a bail
We will not reward those who fail
We will not move till we prevail

[chorus]

[chorus]

We are the many
You are the few

-- Bob Barnetson

Friday Tunes: Bells of Rhymney

This week’s installment of labour themes in pop culture is the Bells of Rhymney (“Rum-ney"). Various artists (include Cher and the Byrds) seem to fiddle the lyrics to suit them so I have reprised the original Welsh poem (“Gwalia Deserta XV”) from which they were drawn below. This Oysterband version is a bit muddy but seems a bit more authentic than the vocally crisper John Denver version.

This song’s lyrics were inspired by a coal-mining disaster and a 1926 British general strike over wages and working conditions in the coal mines. The song touches on the unfettered exploitation of miners, also seen in eastern Canada:

Who made the mineowner?
And who robbed the miner?
They will plunder willy-nilly,
They have fangs, they have teeth

Part of the song’s charm is its structural parody of “Oranges and Lemons” and the jaunty music juxtaposed with the rather dark lyrics.



O what can you give me?
Say the sad bells of Rhymney.

Is there hope for the future?
Cry the brown bells of Merthyr.

Who made the mineowner?
Say the black bells of Rhondda.

And who robbed the miner?
Cry the grim bells of Blaina.

They will plunder willy-nilly,
Say the bells of Caerphilly.

They have fangs, they have teeth
Shout the loud bells of Neath.

To the south, things are sullen,
Say the pink bells of Brecon.

Even God is uneasy,
Say the moist bells of Swansea.

Put the vandals in court
Cry the bells of Newport.

All would be well if — if — if —
Say the green bells of Cardiff.

Why so worried, sisters, why
Sing the silver bells of Wye.

-- Bob Barnetson

Sexism in the food industry

Last week, Metro News reported on an interesting project out of the University of Alberta. Four U of A students have launched an interactive website to track stories of sexism in Edmonton’s food service industry. More specifically:

High-end and high-profile restaurants that monopolize the industry often escape accountability in terms of sexism and other forms of discrimination within their workplace, marketing, and service. We hope to shed light on this disappointing trend by encouraging you to assess the places you choose to eat with a more critical eye.

The stories they have posted so far are pretty much what you would expect: hiring based on looks, wage discrimination, and injurious gender-based working conditions. Anyone who has eaten in a chain restaurant in Edmonton has likely witnessed this. Of course, sexism isn’t just limited to hiring and employment practices, as evidenced by the ad above, which ran in Singapore in 2009.

-- Bob Barnetson

Friday Tunes: The Way It Is

This week’s installment of labour issues in popular culture features The Way It Is by Bruce Hornsby. Hornsby identifies many of the themes covered in Linda Tirado’s book Hand to Mouth that I wrote about on Tuesday. He tackles poverty and the demonizing of the poor (“The man in the silk suit hurries by/As he catches the poor old ladies' eyes/Just for fun he says ‘Get a job’”).

He also comments on racism (“They say hey little boy you can't go/Where the others go/'Cause you don't look like they do”). Yet this song ends on a more upbeat note, identifying the (imperfect) changes that flowed from the US civil rights movement and questions whether indeed “That's just the way it is/Some things will never change”.



Standing in line marking time
Waiting for the welfare dime
'Cause they can't buy a job
The man in the silk suit hurries by
As he catches the poor old ladies' eyes
Just for fun he says "Get a job"

That's just the way it is
Some things will never change
That's just the way it is
But don't you believe them

They say hey little boy you can't go
Where the others go
'Cause you don't look like they do
Said hey old man how can you stand
To think that way
Did you really think about it
Before you made the rules
He said, Son

That's just the way it is
Some things will never change
That's just the way it is
But don't you believe them

Well they passed a law in '64
To give those who ain't got a little more
But it only goes so far
There's a the law that don't change another's mind
When all it sees at the hiring time
Is the line on the color bar

That's just the way it is
Some things will never change
That's just the way it is
But don't you believe them

-- Bob Barnetson

Upcoming labour events in Alberta

Three upcoming labour-related events in Alberta:

In Edmonton, May Day celebrations (May 1) begin with a rally at the Legislature (5:30 om, May 1) followed by a march down Jasper Avenue to Grant Notley Park with dinner to follow.

In Calgary, May Day celebrations (May 1) begin at Memorial Park (Corner of 4^th Street and 12^th Ave SW) at 5 pm with a picket followed by a potluck in the Central Memorial Park Library (12^th Ave and 2^nd St).

The 2014 Alberta Labour History Institute conference (June 18-20, University of Alberta) offers an interesting mix of popular and academic sessions for those interested in labour history. This year’s theme focuses on labour and social movements.

-- Bob Barnetson